How To Start a Flames Of War League: Part Three by Nathan Howard In the third and final stage of the escalation league that our war gaming club started last November, we increased the size of our army lists from 1000 to 1500 points. After starting with 600 point forces just eight weeks ago many players reveled in the high cost options that were now viable. Also, since the points cap for the league was 1500 points, many players took the opportunity to put together tournament style lists to practice with. Read Part One here... Read Part Two here...

With 1500 points to work with, a lot of the German players were eager to play with the Big Cats and fielded lists featuring the Panther and the Tiger. This forced a few changes in the composition of the Allied lists; for some players the response was to fight fire with fire by including the Heavy Breakthrough Guns of the Soviets, the British Firefly, or the American M10. Other players found that Pioneer teams were effective Anti-tank option in assaults and also provided some nice defensive fortifications in certain scenarios. In addition, at 1500 points, players fielding Veteran skilled armies really hit their stride as they were now able to field a reasonable number of platoons and still afford their key support options. Right: A Strelkovy company seizes an objective under the watchful eye of their Komissar.

The true test of our armies came at the end of the league when we hosted a 1500 point Late War tournament. We invited players from the local gaming community to participate and give us a chance to put what we had learnt over the last eight weeks to the test. In preparation for the tournament we contacted Battlefront to get registered as a qualifying event for the US Nationals. They were very helpful and supplied a lot of useful information including a detailed explanation of their scoring system and some helpful tips for running tournaments. We also prepared an information packet for each of the players to refer to during the tournament. Left: Scott with son Colin, one of three father/son pairs that participated in our tournament.

At its core were copies of the three missions we ran, as well as game scoring sheets that could be torn off and submitted at the end of each round. To help things run more smoothly, we supplemented this information with a section clarifying the terrain we were using. Before the tournament we went around and took pictures of all the different types of terrain that we had and combined them with a short write up explaining how we play each type. This standardisation of the terrain rules meant that everyone knew exactly what to expect from the tables and minimized disputes. We received a lot of positive feedback on the terrain packet and have made it available to anyone who is interested (see the bottom of this article). Right: Army? Check. Themed dice? Check. Authority to shoot deserters? Check.

To organise the tournament we used the MeetUp site that is hosted by our local game store. This website allows us to easily organise events and keep in touch with our community. Players can RSVP for events which help us predict attendance. In the case of our Flames Of War tournament this meant that we knew that we had reached our initial limit and that we needed to pull together a few extra tables of terrain to accommodate the extra players. In all we were excited to host 18 people in our first ever Flames Of War tournament. All the preparation paid off and things went very smoothly the day of the event. Left: US 3rd Armored Division vs. Panzer Lehr.

In the aftermath of the escalation league our new Flames Of War community has a solid foundation with a regular game night and a dedicated core group of players. Many of us have already started new armies and are looking forward to upcoming tournaments. We are planning a Firestorm campaign based on the Operation Bagration set and there is even talk of running another escalation league for Early War this summer. ~ Nathan. Right: New Terrain for our next event: Operation Bagration. Download a PDF of the Tournament pack here...